Anime Talk: Your Top Five

This weeks “Anime Talk” I am actually turning to you for some suggestions on what to watch! So I am going to ask you all to give me your top five anime series and or movies. If I end up watching and liking something from your top 5 list it just may end up on Anime Talk as a mini review! I’ll start off below with my top 5 after the jump

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17 Responses to Anime Talk: Your Top Five

Okay, I’m not all that much of an anime fan and I don’t really have a top 5. However I have seen two movies which I enjoyed: Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. Of the two, I enjoyed Spirited Away more, although it can be argued that Princess Mononoke is the more important one because of it’s messages.

1) Baccano!- One of the most fun and its tales of immortality and gangsters on the train the Flying Pussyfoot are totally captivating. It is on Netflix Instant and I’d recommend it highly.

After this, the order does not matter and as a result there are more than 4 more.

2) Trigun- Space western, that is all.
3) FMA: B- Great story and very enjoyable. Also one of the best Shonen I’ve seen.
4) Steins;Gate- One of the best time travel stories I’ve seen in a while.
5) Monster- The first big anime I ever watched outside of Cartoon Network and what a fantastic thing it is. It muses on what a monster is and if anyone is redeemable. The characters are unique and captivating and the titular monster is an amazing character.
6) Mushishi- episodic series with some great naturey elements and some stellar design.
7) Akira- great movie also TEEETTTSSSSSUUUUOOOOOOO!!!!!
8) Death Note- A fantastic story with interesting characters
9) Grave of the Fireflies- saddest movie I have ever seen, still amazing
10) Paprika- dreamlike tale with great animation
11) Mononoke- Great use of japanese mythology and an interesting art style
12) Serial Experiments Lain- trippy, but very good.
13) Angel Beats- not necessarily a favorite, just good.

Not much of a anime fan either.I gotta say a lot of anime is far too predictable and cookie cutter. Ralph Bakshi is probably my favorite of Western animators. Wizards being an all time favorite of mine. With that being said here’s some of the best in my not so humble opinion. Bio hunter, Ninja scroll, Any of the Ghost in the Shell Series, Akira, & Sword of the Stranger. Also I’d agree Princess Monoke is worth the watch.

I figured Akira would be making a number of the top 5’s as it is considered one of the Must see Anime movies, but truth to tell I have already seen Akira. It was the very first Anime I ever watched, or should I say tried to watch. It bored me to tears and I HATED IT! After seeing that movie it took my buddy a better part of a year to get me to watch any other anime as Akira turned me off the enter subject.

I haven’t watched much of the newer anime, to be honest. I went to a local anime convention a couple of years ago, and realized I didn’t recognize about 90% of the costumes.

But here are my top five:

1) Ninja Scroll – The movie, not the series (which was pretty awful, IMO). There’s just something about the presentation of this that I find incredibly engaging. Sure, the ninja have superpowers. That’s pretty typical for a ‘historical’ anime story of this type, though.

3) Trigun – Space western, as mentioned above. This is like Cowboy Bebop (which also has a western sort of theme to it), but has more of a comedy theme at times.

4) Initial D – Street racing down the mountain roads of Japan. It’s like they took the typical samurai action concept and transferred it to street racing. ‘I need to prove I’m the best. And you’re the best in the area, so I must defeat you!’, etc, etc.

5) Agent Aika – So absurd and exploitative, that I find it incredibly funny to watch. It ends just ending short of an R rating, from what I remember.

Actually, I don’t care much for anime. Though I watch “Bleach,” mostly because I’m an insomniac and sober. I have to go back to Saturday morning cartoons for this one.

I don’t know if many of you will recognize these titles. For that matter, I don’t really know if they all qualify as anime:

1. Mighty Orbots
2. Thunderbirds 2086
3. Silverhawks
4. I don’t know the original Japanese title, but a movie released as “Dynamo” or something like that in the 1980s. A race of winged aliens living in a giant space pyramid invade earth but are stopped by a giant robot.
5. Meh… no idea

As you can tell, I like robots. What mech warrior princess doesn’t?

Never saw the end of “Monster.” Could never really figure what was going on. It just droned. “Akira?” It’s what turned me off of anime. “Ghost in the Shell” was okay… again, just overly complex. I do like the American actress’ voice for The Major.

I will peruse others’ Top 5’s and suggestions. Maybe give anime another view.

Ghenmor:
1) Ninja Scroll – The movie, not the series (which was pretty awful, IMO).There’s just something about the presentation of this that I find incredibly engaging.Sure, the ninja have superpowers.That’s pretty typical for a ‘historical’ anime story of this type, though.

1) Cowboy Bebop because it has NO giant robots!
2) Cowboy Bebop because it has NO mystic magic!
3) Cowboy Bebop because it has NO super beings!
4) Cowboy Bebop because it has NO freaking samurai!
5) Cowboy Bebop because it has NO raping tentacles!

Obviously, I’m not the best person to ask about anime, because I HATE all those things that 99% of Anime revolves around. Most of the science would make Stan Lee shake his head in disbelief, most of the characters are self-absorbed whiney poseurs, and the exaggeration of facial features can only be admired by Plastic Man. My kid loved it, though, so I got exposed to Cowboy Bebop by accident when he was younger and got into the complexity and maturity of the writing, which didn’t rely on child-voiced Mecha, spikey-haired quasi-demons throwing fireballs, or any non-humans at all. But I guess that’s the reason most people get into it.

One quick question, why do you guys dislike Akira. It isn’t the greatest thing, but it is certainly a good movie, at least, in my opinion.

Also skybandit, if you don’t like those things I have a few suggestions that are well written and more realistic, such as Monster. It is a thriller set in the fallen eastern bloc with great writing and characters. I’d also recommend Baccano!, despite its few mystical characters. It is great fun and the immortals in the story are explained well enough and make the story all the greater. If you do watch these, I hope you enjoy them, as I did.

i don’t really have a lot of reasons for my top five, other than i just enjoy them. They vary a lot.

1) Rurouni Kenshin. As a kid i got in trouble a lot staying up past my bed time to watch this. Kenshin is a great character. On the surface he’s quiet, clumsy, and a little goofy, and this is who he wants to be. But when things get real, no one is kicks more butt. Beyond that, all the characters are great. Sanosuke, Saito, Kaoru, i could go into them all. i even enjoyed a lot Kenshin’s filler, though after the Shogo Amakusa arc, they really did ruin it. Still there’s 82 great episodes. It may not have what many of the “best” anime series have, but it will always be my number one.

2) Cowboy Bebop. Pretty stark contrast to my number one, but i love it. Bebop seems to be on a lot of people’s lists, so i don’t think i need to explain it.

3) Limiting myself to one entry for Studio Ghibli films, i’m having a though choice between Porco Rosso and Kiki’s Delivery Service, closely followed by everything else directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Ultimately, i’m going with Kiki, because it was the first Ghibli film i ever saw and has a lot of personal significance to me. i’m not normally into slice-of-life stories, but the Miyazaki’s characters are very easy to become attached to. That’s what really got hold of me from the first time i saw Kiki’s Delivery Service. The little witch-in-training was easy to relate to, but captures your imagination, just because she can fly. Ok, that’s most of Ghibli’s films. In short: Mayazaki is a genius.

4) Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Great story, great characters, cool powers that were well used, a seriously epic finale, and the eye-catches where hilarious (mostly because my friends and i would try to imitate the various voices they used to say “Full Metal Alchemist!”)

5) Gurren Lagann. It’s over the top absurd and that’s exactly why i love it. They start by blowing up the galaxy and go from there. There’s a few things i don’t like about it, but heroes are able to do the impossible and rewrite laws of physics just by willing it hard enough (unless they’re hungry) and i wouldn’t have my heroes any other way.

Honorable Mention: Dragon Ball Z. Pretty bad writing, fights that are mostly yelling, and power levels that are just ridiculous. There really is no reason to love it, but i do. i don’t know how, but Akira Toriyama made it work.

Like i said, i’m all over the place, and maybe a little childish. But i know what i like, and that’s all that matters.

1) Gatchaman. Well, technically Battle of the Planets. My first exposure to Anime and fondly remembered.
2) Lupin III. I loved the humor and the offbeat animation in the series
3) Cowboy Beebop. Great writing, great character and I had a weird crush on Spike.
4) Robot Carnival. My only movie on the list, it gave me a look at what anime could be not just as storytelling but also as an art form.
5) Fist of the Northstar. Bloody and violent but so well written and animated it makes my list of anime every fan needs to see at least once.

Vampyrist:
One quick question, why do you guys dislike Akira. It isn’t the greatest thing, but it is certainly a good movie, at least, in my opinion.

It has been a very long time since I saw Akira so I can’t give specifics however I remember just being bored to tears when I watched it. The pacing of the story seems way to slow to me and over all I just did not enjoy it.

@Vampyrist: Specifics as to why I didn’t like Akira.
1. The pace really was a crawl.
2. The feud was beyond over the top. “I hate you. Repeat ad nauseam. What? You’re not even human anymore? I STILL hate you more. Repeat ad nauseam. I’m not going to care what else is happening to the world around me, just so I can hate you more . . . ” Come on, man. Biker needs to prioritize.
3. As someone else mentioned here, physics left the building. Mass from nowhere? Conjured body mass? Not even eating the city it was getting too big for? I’d say Stan Lee looking at that might give up comics for a week. There comes a point when ridiculous is boring, and Akira had a pace slow enough to give the tentacles WEEKS of in-story time to grow. Seconds was just a waste of animation.
4. Everyone I knew who’d heard of it wanted to show it to me AGAIN. It was awful the first time. The sixth was just, well? At least I got a lot of homework done.

I’m fall on manga but a bit hate anime, mostly because they tend to change the story or characters to not overlap the original work and that broke the entire chemistry. That’s why i’m avoid watching anime of all my favourite manga

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